Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment v1.0 Change Log

Ironclad Games and Stardock Entertainment are pleased to announce the v1.0 release of Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment! Sins of a Solar Empire v1.15 is required for Entrenchment. Registered customers may update their copies of the game via Impulse (http://www.impulsedriven.com). For those who were taking part in the beta, here is the final change log:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------Gameplay / Balance:---------------------------------------------------------------------------General-Powerful new research subjects to improve starbase scaling late game.-Ships taken over with the Rapture's Domination ability now properly leave fleets they are in and join the Rapture's fleet if it is in one.-Reduced all factions' mines' max hull from 40 to 30 to offset attack type changes.-Fixed descriptions for tech tree related achievements so it's clearer what you need to do to get them.-Advent Hangar Defenses' Shield Bestowal now affects star bases.-Anti-Structure frigates can no longer attack anything but structures, mines and starbases.-Renormalized ANTIMODULE attack type to deal 200% damage vs structures, and renormalized its effectiveness vs. other armor types to be within the range 25% - 100%.-Adjusted nominal damage of Vasari star base, Ogrov and Adjudicator to maintain DPS vs structures to account for ANTIMODULE damage bonus change.-3rd level of Assault Systems upgrade weapon damage bonus reduced from 30% to 20%.-Fixed errors in Grindstone templates.-Face off and Implosion don't spawn stuff twice anymore.-Tutorials fixed.-Under construction starbases now have their max shield points properly computed for the purposes of ability use constraints.-Starbase experience scaled by their build percentage.-Abilities that repair damage and/or restore shields within a radius now only consider targets within range.-Debris Vortex: hull repaired per piece of debris reduced approximately 33%.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------User Interface / HUD:----------------------------------------------------------------------------Final research pre-req arrows added.-Pirate miniwindow tooltips properly suppressed when pirates are no longer active.-Fix being able to press buy/sell at same time in quick market screen.-Pip clouds now include mines.-Planet bonuses now render percentages in correct color.-Fixed bug in the way planets are counted for random galaxies in the front end descriptors.-Star base attack ranges are now rendered during the placement process.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------Modding:----------------------------------------------------------------------------Mod directory now defaults to a directory based on the current version of the game (to prevent obsolete mods from preventing the game from loading). -Fighter attack routines can now be used by other ship types (i.e with the right physics tweaks you can get non-static combat movement).-Mod checksums only consider GameInfo and Mesh directories. This way purely visual mods won't cause different checksums and prevent players from playing with one another.-AI retreat threshold is now datadriven.-Whether attackers can only target structures or not is now datadriven.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------Misc:----------------------------------------------------------------------------All maps updated to version 3.-Fixed crash when downloaded or custom maps are in the default Galaxy directory.-Fixed crash when trying to select custom maps.-Fixed in-game Map Designer from crashing.-Fixed crash caused by new Subversion behavior.-Fixed crash caused by AI use of Advent Homing Mines under certain conditions.-Fixed crash caused by docked fighters trying to update their AI when the carrier ship dies.-Fixed crash caused by attempting to render the rally point line from a source you no longer own (e.g dead starbase, conquered planet).

I'm not 100% clear on this. the attack vs other armour types would only concern the vasari starbase, more specifically its second weapon. because if ogrovs and adjudicator cannot attack anything else, it doesn't matter. their formal dmg is probably lowered because they were doing 75% vs modules before and do 200% now, but other than that it does not matter. only for the starbase does it mean that the 2nd weapons slot is not completely useless against anything but defenses. did I get this right?

else, another awesome change log. I am very curious about those new research subjects. and I am quite glad about the mines cost/ dmg change, because now it's much easier to set up a little mine field at an area, but the mine field would be less efficient than a similar number of betas. but then you can make it a little more dense to counter it.

I'm not 100% clear on this. the attack vs other armour types would only concern the vasari starbase, more specifically its second weapon. because if ogrovs and adjudicator cannot attack anything else, it doesn't matter. their formal dmg is probably lowered because they were doing 75% vs modules before and do 200% now, but other than that it does not matter. only for the starbase does it mean that the 2nd weapons slot is not completely useless against anything but defenses. did I get this right?

Well, they did this because whether or not the ANTIMODULE ships can attack other ships is not hardcoded anymore. You can just change a line and the Ogrov could throw its torpedoes at ships, which is why they needed to re-do the numbers on the armor types

In essence, what they did is re-adjust the damage bonus and the damage output of the anti-structure units to keep the same relative power, but also ensure that if someone wants to change (or make new ships with ANTIMODULE damage type) their targeting restrictions they wouldn't do 1% damage to ships

is it just me or is the final version of entrenchment distinctly smaller than the beta? the betas ranged well of 200 mb whereas this final is listed as just over 100 mb. not that it matters, it's positive, but I'm just wondering. optimisation I guess.

PS I know the post doesnt GUARENTEE we will get a new game speed rate, but I would like to see some sort of response, whether a yes or no. Starbases I believe now make games last 4 times as long as they used to, and going through a 20 hour game is a bit extreme.

We opted for other methods to speed the game up. Quick start and juicing home planets (in particular to avoid early resource stalls) and faster ability to clear gravity wells (which in our testing is one of the slowest parts of the game with very little to show for it). Starbases or not, our experiene and ICO logs show us that the average game time is down quite a bit (obviously discouting super huge maps and special situations).

is it just me or is the final version of entrenchment distinctly smaller than the beta? the betas ranged well of 200 mb whereas this final is listed as just over 100 mb. not that it matters, it's positive, but I'm just wondering. optimisation I guess.

If you're updating, Impulse only grabs the updated files.

But it could also be smaller. The betas could have been compiled with debugging enabled, which results in bigger (and slower) files then ones compiled without debugging enabled.

vasari get assault deployment (at lvl 4 no less) that has two levels with 25% faster construction and upgrade. vasari also get armour improvement. 5% per level and 3 extra armour.

advent get two levels of 8% max shield increase and shield regeneration each.

most upgrades are at lvls 6 - 7, except for the vasari assault specialisation. that's I posted those things are brilliant. expensive certainly, but with the cost of individual upgrades, I'd say the already pay if have a few starbases scattered around. and a 50% construction/ upgrade increase should go a long way for the vasari anti-starbase starbase.